Educational Theories Of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky And John Dewey

Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and John Dewey have written extensively on educational theories. Their work as a collective focuses on three specific issues that are of concern in the text; the characteristics of the learner, the curricular content, and the instructional strategies which are used as a structures for learning. Classroom environments based on their work are referred to as constructivism. The theory of cognitive development is described as how children create their own knowledge. The first three stages of cognitive development are referred to as sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operations; these stages describe the development of children from birth to age eight. During these first stages of development it is said that children

People learn through person-to-person interaction and then individually though internalization processes that lead to a deeper understanding. Vygotsky believed that social interaction help children construct knowledge. An effective learning environment should allow for child-to-child and adult-to-child interactions. The zone of proximal development describes the distance between the developmental levels reached by independent problem-solving under adult guidance of in collaboration with more capable peers. Dewey’s philosophy of education is the belief that knowledge results from experience. His philosophy of teaching and learning focuses on the continuous interaction between past experiences and current situating. Learning doesn’t occur in isolation, it is a continuous process, so each thing learned impacts the experiences that follow. Children tend to respond to learning opportunities based not only upon the structure and presentation, but also in relation to the child’s previous experiences with the topic. With this in mind a hands on environment that promotes positive social interactions and experience seems to be the best possible thing for children. While not everyone agrees with every part of the philosophy there is still a lot to be learned from this information. Most teachers adopt what they fits them or their classroom the best when it comes to implementing these theories in real life. This has opened the door to more research and even more learning about the educational processes of